Junosphere first debuted in October of 2011, delivering a cloudbasedservice that enables networking professionals to test different deployment models without the need for physical hardware. MSRP for Junosphere starts at $5.00 per day per virtual machine (VM).

Judy Beningson, vice president and general manager, Virtual Junos Business Unit, at Juniper Networks told Enterprise Networking Planet that since Junosphere launched users have logged over one million virtual machine hours using the platform.

The updated Junosphere platform now has a new graphical user interface (GUI), making it easier for users to get up and running. Beningson noted that the original interface was rudimentary but the new GUI is Java-based.

"It's what you would expect out of a software application," Beningson said. "The first iteration was just a prototype, now this is the real commercial one that we wanted in the first place."

The initial user interface included a lot of manual processes. For example, if a user wanted a specific timeslot for Junosphere they would have had to either call or email Juniper. With the new release, that's all automated with self-service provisioning.